1. I think some of my distress in recent days has come from summer nearly being over and (a) I didn't get as much done as I wanted to and (b) I didn't have as much fun as I had planned on. That "taking one day a week and just exploring the small towns around the area" never happened. I took one trip to Longview and one to Whitesboro and that was it, other than some trips for bigger, better grocery shopping than what I can get in town.
Also, the whole "being alone in my head" thing gets to me. I feel an active resistance towards going in and reading *yet another chapter* of the Policy and Law stuff.
2. I am deeply dismayed about a lot of things going on in our country. I guess the race hatred never actually decreased, it just buried itself for a while. (and it's more than that: some outlets are focusing on the racist tendencies but there's also a lot of Anti-Semitism out there, and even the crazy old kind that I thought died with Old Hollywood...)
I dunno, but....maybe it's an oversimplification but it seems to me people who feel a certain level of security and that their lives have been a "success" however they may define it aren't out doing that stuff.
And it's also like what my mom used to say about vandalism and petty crime and stuff: "If they put their energy to doing *good* maybe they'd be surprised at how much they could get done." (Though perhaps part of the problem is, in their minds, they ARE doing good)
I'm also dismayed about some subset of the commentatiat that seems to figure if you're not getting on a bus to go counter-protest, you're "one of them." Not all of us have lives that would allow us to do that. Not all of us are physically capable of doing that.
I confess, I think about "what would you do if That Group showed up in your town and..." I don't know. I LIKE to think I'd maybe be out there with the church groups doing a peaceful counter protest, lots of people just down on their knees praying for the safety of everyone in the town (and maybe praying that the angry people go away*). Or that I'd be handing out bottles of water to the cordon of police trying to keep the different groups separate.
(*And as seems to often be the case - the guys who showed up at the Charlottesville march *weren't* local guys)
But the truth is, I've just got me. If I were seriously injured, like in a brawl, I'd have big problems - there is no one with the time to take care of me. If I got arrested for "civil disobedience" because I got up in some anti-Semite's face and screamed at him, and some admin at my university figured that was insubordination and I was some kind of a "risk," I might no longer have a job - and I need this gig.
And yes, that's cowardly, I know. But I feel like I need to make my own safety (in all senses) a priority because I don't know too many other people who would.
I don't know. The whole thing just makes me deeply sad, that there are still people who feel this way. I mean, there always will be - pace Nelson Mandela, I DO NOT think "love comes more easily to the human heart than hate" - I think the natural (animal) state of humans is to fear and distrust those who are not like them, and to be deeply selfish.
(and yes. On some level my "self preservation" instincts are selfish, but they are more passively than actively selfish, so hopefully I am not quite as bad a person for that)
You have to work at loving most people. Most people have annoying characteristics, or you don't fully understand them, or whatever. I find it very easy to get angry at people, though generally my anger manifests as an "I don't even want to know you" and me just silently stalking away.
I don't know. One of the big issues I personally have is feeling like people are saying* "You're not doing enough" whether that "enough" is "protecting my health" with exercise and avoidance of anything that actually tastes good. Or if "enough" is work - class prep, research, etc. Or whether "enough" is service to humanity (which is really the only way I can fight against some of the bad things - is the quiet low-key stuff like donating money to good causes that help people, or working at a food bank, that kind of thing. It's not going out and getting in the face of a racist, but....)
(*which is just projecting my perfectionism on other people)
And so that's why I feel so tired and so worn right now - the idea that nothing I can do is ever enough. And I know I tend to conflate "who I am" with "what I do" too much, but the feeling that "nothing I can do is ever enough" slips over into being "I'M not enough" and that's not a good way to feel.
3. And yes, I'm tired. Saturday night I was watching re-runs of ER because there was nothing else I wanted to watch on*
(*Shame on you, Cartoon Network, for reducing the diversity of your programming to the barest minimum. And that new cartoon, "OK GO"? It seems aggressively ugly and I don't like that art style, so I can't even watch it to see if the writing is any good)
And there was a scene - this was early in the series when Dr. Greene's daughter was a little girl (but after his divorce) and she was staying with him. But because he's an ER doctor, he's always working, so he took her to the hospital with him, to sit in the staff breakroom. And when he finally wrapped things up and was ready to take her home, she was so tired she asked him if he would carry her. And he said something like "of course" and picked her up.
And I admit, that made me cry a little. It's been more than 40 years (I'm guessing about 43) since anyone picked me up and carried me, and I know I'm way too big for that now. But I want someone to carry me - maybe more figuratively than literally, I don't know. It gets so hard and so tiring being the only one - like I said, I am the only one I have to depend on. If I get sick and I'm out of whatever OTC medicine I need, I have to either suit up and get out to the drugstore, or I have to make do without out. When I come home tired on Wednesday or Thursday evening, the laundry still needs to be done and it's just me there to do it. When I don't know what I want to eat, I have to figure it out myself.
And at this point, it's always going to be that way.
And I just get tired.
And the other thing? Having another person there means you get to focus on them and the news of the world, for example, recedes a little bit if your beloved has strep throat and you need to attend to them and make sure they're not getting worse. Or if they have a big project at work and are stressed out about it. Or, in better times: planning a birthday surprise for them makes the ugliness of the world go away a little. When you're alone it's too easy to focus on the ugliness.
I don't know. I know part of this is allergies - ragweed has started - and allergies always make me kind of dysphoric and "meh."
4. I still kind of hurt. Friday evening I mowed the lawn. It was pretty miserable because it was so humid but it needed doing. I woke up sometime v. early Saturday morning with horrible muscle cramps all around my chest and upper back, and something not unlike an asthma attack, but less bad. I couldn't get comfortable but was afraid to get out of bed because I didn't know if the pain I was in might make me weak and prone to falling/passing out (it has happened before). Eventually it got better but the rest of the weekend I was kind of sore.
We also had a dewpoint of 79 F for a while yesterday. I didn't realize that and tried to do the dvd workout, and was like "Wow, that near-asthma attack must have done something to my lungs" because I had to stop every 10 minutes or so and take a break.
It's still humid today. I'm tired of the humidity.
5. Tomorrow is my doctor's checkup. I haven't lost the weight I wanted to lose (I THINK. I don't own a scale because past experience is that constantly monitoring my weight is bad for me, it's better to go by the fit of my clothes). I don't think I've gained any, my clothes still fit the same, but I would have liked to lose some. I tried increasing exercise. I've cut back on eating. I was hoping the "menopausal women just have to, like, halve the calories they take in" wasn't going to be true for me but maybe I just have to say goodbye to desserts forever and try to exist on mainly vegetables.
And that makes me sad because I have so few other pleasures in life, and I don't care what you say, most vegetables aren't that enjoyable to eat. I eat them because they are good for me.
Then Wednesday is allllll the sitting in a room and being talked at. At least it's shorter this year and if I'm reading the schedule right, they aren't making us do active-shooter training.
(I am reminding myself the possibility still exists that (a) they might add it in at the last minute or (b) someone had the spectacularly bad idea of having someone come in and do a "simulated situation" as a surprise - bad, because it's entirely possible there might be a few folks in the audience with actual weapons who would rush the "would be bad guy" and also there are enough of us with weird medical conditions that sudden stress would be a bad thing)
Thursday is more meetings, and Friday is my departmental meeting. So summer is effectively over for me now. And I'm sad, like I said in #1, I don't feel like I really DID anything.
6. No, wait, I have more. I was thinking this weekend - in conjunction with the just being tired about always shouldering things - about the whole "Fallen Caryatid" passage from Stranger in a Strange Land. And yes, this is a real statue - Rodin did a couple different variants of it, holding different things. (And there's also, IIRC, an allusion to it in Despicable Me at the Bank of Evil in the very opening, but it's a male caryatid and he winds up genuinely crushed).
But here's the quotation again:
"This poor little caryatid has fallen under the load. She’s a good girl—look at her face. Serious, unhappy at her failure, not blaming anyone, not even the gods…and still trying to shoulder her load, after she’s crumpled under it.But she’s more than just good art denouncing bad art; she’s a symbol for every woman who ever shouldered a load too heavy. But not alone women—this symbol means every man and woman who ever sweated out life in uncomplaining fortitude until they crumpled under their loads. It’s courage…and victory.
Victory in defeat, there is none higher. She didn’t give up…she’s still trying to lift that stone after it has crushed her…she’s all the unsung heroes who couldn’t make it but never quit."
And I also read an article suggestion higher ed is 'under assault'
(And yes, in before someone else says: "it brought it on itself" and perhaps yes, some of the more silly season stuff has been some level of pandering to student demands when they don't fully understand, but....there's more to it than that)
And yeah, I know: higher ed is expensive. And state budgets are squeezed, so state schools suffer and there's the whole financial thing (this is top of mind for me, because it looks like the state legislature is going to have to go back and mess with the budget again, and that will probably mean a bit more blood is squeezed from our stone).
But even beyond that. Even beyond all the sillier more extreme stuff that's happened in the past few years - it does seem that there's a trend in our culture towards not wanting to think, not wanting to consider conflicting opinions, latching on to an idea you find comforting and hanging on to it even when evidence suggests otherwise*, wanting to be entertained over everything, and wanting v. simple solutions to complicated problems. (Most issues in our culture are very complicated and nuanced and cannot be boiled down to 140 characters, and that is probably why so many people are angry and fighting, or are despairing and on the verge of giving up)
(*all the "alternative health" stuff sold by starlets, much of which stuff is useless, and some of which may be actively dangerous to the user)
And one thing I will say I'm heartily sick of is the "let's tar with a broad brush" - "All academics are dangerous radicals who should be fired" for example. Or "All white people are automatically bad."
Yes, in both categories, some are, and I hate that and I wish I didn't have to suffer guilt by association.
And....you know, I don't know where I'm going with this other than that I'm FREAKING TIRED and this stone I've been carrying for so long isn't getting any lighter, and I'm sick and tired of being told how what I'm already doing is insufficient, and I need to do more and sacrifice more, and....also the whole idea that I'm working at a career that is dying quickly or slowly (depending upon whom you read) and....I just don't know how I "can even" for much longer.
Maybe it will get better once classes start, I don't know. But right now I'm just kind of sick of humanity.
There was a Peanuts comic strip I remember from one of the big compilations I had:
But humanity as a whole? Forget 'em. When you put them together in a group, bad stuff starts to ooze out. And I think I'm seeing too much of humanity and too little of individual people right now.
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